September 22, 2015 ó Teledyne Optech is pleased to announce that our academic partners will give exciting presentations on the use of Teledyne Optech lidar systems for forestry applications at the SilviLaser 2015 conference running from September 28th to 30th in La Grande Motte, France.

Prof. BenoÓt St-Onge of the UniversitÈ du QuÈbec ‡ MontrÈal will discuss his pioneering work identifying trees using relative intensity data from Optech Titanís 532, 1064 and 1550-nm laser channels. In his presentation Prof. St-Onge will describe how he has differentiated between hardwood/softwood trees with only a 3% error rate and identified trees by genus with only a 15% error rate by combining Titanís multispectral intensity and 3D data. Prof. St-Ongeís techniques make Optech Titan a valuable tool for quickly assessing large tracts of forest in applications such as carbon/biomass measurement, biodiversity, forest science, and tree farming. Prof. St.-Onge will give his presentation on using multispectral lidar for forestry in Parallel Session 2 on Monday, September 28th between 1:45 and 3:30 pm and his general keynote address on Tuesday, September 29th at 9:00 am.

On the conference’s final day, Dr. Enrico Paringit of the University of the Philippines will give his own keynote address on the use of lidar systems for large-scale mapping in the Philippines. As part of the Disaster Risk and Exposure Assessment for Mitigation (DREAM) program, Dr. Paringit has mapped river basins and flood plains around the Philippines to help model flooding from typhoons. Over the last three years he has covered tens of thousands of square kilometers thanks to the efficiency and point density of the high-altitude Optech Pegasus and other Teledyne Optech lidars. Now, Dr. Paringit is turning his attention to improving resource management policies in the Philippines, and will describe how he is using Teledyne Optech systems to survey eco-parks, predict and model wildfires, and make inventories of tree plantations in his address Wednesday, September 30th at 9:50 am.